Employees to Pay University of Pittsburgh Medical Center over $300,000

A group of employees sued the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (“UPMC”), alleging that UPMC’s policy of automatically deducting a 30-minute lunch break is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Camesi v. Univ. of Pittsburgh Med. Ctr., 753 Fed. Appx. 135 (3rd Cir. 2019). During the course of litigation, the employees demanded UPMC to produce 65 million pages of documentation. UPMC objected, stating that it would be an “enormous cost” to produce that amount of documentation in the allotted timeframe. Nonetheless, UPMC produced the documents as required by the discovery requests.

The employees then withdrew the lawsuit. UPMC filed a bill of costs in District Court, requesting a total of $319,655.80. Of that total amount, $310,000 was for the cost of producing the 65 million documents requested by the employees. The District Court approved the award of costs under 28 U.S.C. § 1920. Section 1920 allows a court to tax “the cost of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained for use in the case.”

The employees moved for review of the award and requested the District Court to reduce or vacate the amount. The District Court denied the employees request, and affirmed the amount requested by UPMC. On appeal, the Third Circuit stated, “. . . the District Court did not abuse its discretion in taxing costs against the Appellants that were also attribute to the unnamed plaintiffs. Appellants voluntarily chose to bring their claims as a class action, and their counsel presumably informed them of the risks of doing so.”

For some workers, having to take a sick day means not getting paid. That may simply not be an option for those hard-working employees who are struggling to make ends meet. Instead, they come into work, and run the risk of getting sicker and spreading germs to other employees. Fortunately, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently
... Read more

Parking lot attendants are generally low-paid positions, with little to no healthcare benefits. In Philadelphia, employers operating parking lots or garages could discharge an employee without demonstrating just cause. Therefore, attendants had no legal recourse if they were fired from their job. However, on June 5, 2019, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney signed a bill that
... Read more

For some workers, having to take a sick day means not getting paid. That may simply not be an option for those hard-working employees who are struggling to make ends meet. Instead, they come into work, and run the risk of getting sicker and spreading germs to other employees. Fortunately, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently
... Read more

Parking lot attendants are generally low-paid positions, with little to no healthcare benefits. In Philadelphia, employers operating parking lots or garages could discharge an employee without demonstrating just cause. Therefore, attendants had no legal recourse if they were fired from their job. However, on June 5, 2019, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney signed a bill that
... Read more